We are sure we talked about this topic in previous articles in this series. Our opinion is that if you confirm an event or person found in the biblical record through archaeology, then you have basically proven certain parts of the Bible true.
We have enough physical evidence to show that even the unproven parts of the Bible are true as well. But you will hear people make the claim that archaeology and biblical archaeology cannot prove the Bible true.
These research fields are only designed to uncover material remains. It is hard to recover conversations, supernatural acts, and so on. While the current archaeological record is silent on many events and aspects found in the Bible, that does not mean that the ancient people did not hear about them, write about them, and kept those records safe for as long as they could.
All forms of archaeology cannot dig up what is not there anymore and the silence is not proof that biblical events did not take place. Yet, people will make a big scene about how archaeology cannot prove the Bible true.
That is not its purpose and too many people go into archaeology with the wrong idea and end up losing their faith because they elevated archaeology to an authority level that is beyond its scope.
These same people do it for all of the sciences as well. Too many Christian organizations bend over backward to support the concept that archaeology and biblical archaeology cannot prove the Bible true. We will review and comment on 4 points made by The Gospel Coalition on this topic. Click their name to get to their article.
#1. The goal of biblical archaeology is not to prove the Bible.
The danger of saying some archaeological discoveries prove the Bible is that the language is polarizing. Some discoveries seem to prove it; others seem to disprove it. Consequently, archaeologists fall into two camps: those desiring to prove the Bible and those desiring to disprove it.
We are not worried about the polarizing aspect of this issue. People will try to disprove the Bible no matter which field of research they are in. What concerns us is that the writer of that article thinks that there are discoveries that disprove the Bible.
That is not so. What tries to disprove the Bible are the theories, assumptions conjectures, etc., of the archaeologists who do not accept the Bible as true. We have yet to find one discovery that disproves the Bible.
But the writer is correct when he says that there are people entering the field for those two purposes. Neither will work as their purpose distorts their work. Instead, anyone entering the field should be looking for the truth, not the best explanation or what they want the past to be.
The last purpose also influences the discoveries and will distort the past. They need to leave interpretation at the door. Interpretation only uses non-truth as an influential factor that also distorts the p[ast and the discovery.
#2. The Bible presents an enormous historical and geographical portrait of the ancient world.
The period of history reflected in Scripture is around 2,000 years, and includes locations spanning from the banks of the Euphrates in present-day Iraq to the Nile River delta in Egypt. Yet even though the world of the Bible is expansive, archaeology’s tools have become increasingly narrow.
This is a moot point. The size of the geographical area doe snot matter when it comes to digging up information from the past. The problem comes in with the different archaeologists, their beliefs or unbeliefs, and their concept of the past.
Their views are often influenced by those factors and this leads to many faulty conclusions. For example, the domestication of the camel. One set of researchers found some camel bones in one area of this region and then drew their conclusions that Abraham did not have camels.
All the camels did was show that camels were domesticated and the rest was the result of the influential factors we just mentioned. The size of the geographical region had nothing to do with anything except maybe missing a key area to dig in to find domesticated camel remains earlier than those discovered.
A student once asked me, “What would be the one archaeological discovery that would quiet all the skeptics?” My answer: there’s not one.
We have to agree with this answer because even if they found Noah’s ark that structure would not stop skeptics from questioning and rejecting it as the ark. We could even ‘prove’ it was not the ark and we talked about this in our book Noah’s Flood Did Take Place.
- A fraction of remains survive to be discovered.
- A fraction of ancient sites have been surveyed.
- A fraction of known sites have been meaningfully excavated.
- A fraction of what has been found has been academically published.
- A fraction of what has been discovered and published pertains to the Bible.
These are all true but we put the most important one in italics. This has been a problem for decades. Many archaeologists wait decades before publishing their discoveries, final thoughts, and so on. One couple waited 40 years before they published one final report.
Kathleen Kenyon never published her results about Jericho and on it goes. We do not like the Kenyon-Wheeler square excavation method either as this and the failure to publish leaves too much information buried, useless, and keeps the archaeological record spotty and full of holes.
#3. Archaeology is unable to address the Bible’s theological claims.
Biblical archaeology is capable of providing data that helps recreate the ancient Israelites’ world. But it is unable to address the Bible’s theological claims. For example, recent publications of cuneiform texts from “Judah town” in Babylon point toward the presence of a Judean community residing around Babylon during the sixth century B.C. This does seem to correspond to the witness prophetic books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Yet these texts make no mention of why the people were in Babylon, or how their residence there ties to rampant idolatry and covenant disobedience, as the biblical writers depict. The documents corroborate the biblical narrative, but they do not speak to the theological realities of Israel’s exile.
Nor can we expect it to. That is not the purpose of archaeology or biblical archaeology. Both research fields can only deal with material remains. They cannot deal with conversations, purposes, etc., without finding manuscripts, correspondence, and other documents that would relate to theological issues.
It must be remembered that we are to take the Bible by faith, not by physical evidence. People who enter either of these fields to try to prove the Bible true may be experiencing doubt about God and his word.
That is a recipe for failure. You cannot expect a field of research to do more than it is capable of doing. Or designed to do. If the texts do not mention the why, it does not matter, because we get the why from the Bible.
The Bible is an ancient text that attests to historical events and explains them. Do not expect secular ancient manuscripts to provide supernatural explanations. It is not going to happen.
It is unrealistic to expect extra-biblical manuscripts etc., to contain information from God.
#4. Archaeological discoveries can confirm but cannot prove the Bible.
So how should we discuss biblical archaeological discoveries? They can confirm and support the Bible’s historical portrait, but they cannot inductively “prove” the Bible’s truthfulness. Sometimes, due to limited understanding or misinterpretation, certain finds don’t appear to confirm the Bible; and sometimes, discoveries believed to support the Bible are later found wanting.
We have discussed this up above in the introduction and in other articles in this series. Confirmation is proving, just ask law enforcement when they confirm an alibi. That confirmation is proof that the person they are investigating is not a suspect or may not be a suspect.
When you confirm different aspects of the Bible, events, people, and civilizations, you have just proven the Bible true when it discusses those events, etc. The Hittites are the best example of this.
We won’t go into the story of their absence for 1800 years and then their eventual discovery. But since the Hittite nation was confirmed to exist, it proved the Bible true when it talked about the Hittite people mentioned in the Bible.
That discovery, though, does not prove the specific interaction Abraham had with Hittites, we would need more information and further discoveries to do that. But it does prove that Abraham had interaction with the Hittites because that nation existed.
The reason that group of Hittites was living where the Bible says can be due to many other legitimate reasons. All of these would need more discoveries to see which reason it was that brought those Hittites to that region of the Promised Land.
Both archaeology and Biblical archaeology are limited in what they can do and what they can produce. That is why faith is so important. You need faith to believe God and take him at his word.
Even the discoveries proving or confirming a part of the Bible true, need faith to accept that they are confirmation of the Biblical record. You cannot escape the faith requirement no matter how hard you try or demand.
So yes, in part, both archaeology and Biblical Archaeology provide evidence that proves the Bible true. You just cannot go out and try to find those pieces of evidence but search for the truth instead.
Remember Jesus said, you shall know the truth. Which means interpretation is not part of the result or the investigation. Interpretation hides the truth not discover it.
Here are 2 links to provide more information
#1. What Biblical Archaeology Can and Cannot Prove!
#2. https://truthnet.org/Biblicalarcheology/introduction/
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